Both I and, I'm pretty sure, the majority of Kogs are to the left (whatever that term means in this post-Reagan world) of center-leftist Josh M. Marshall. Atop my list of favorites have always been
digby and
billmon, who are not just luminous but igneous in essays delightful to read not solely for their political insights, but for the sheer pleasure of their wordsmithing. I've nevertheless always found Marshall's reporting, analyses and exposés valuable even when I've disagreed, which has been often enough. Others with his viewpoint I long ago ceased to follow, but never him. It's a rare week that goes by that I'm not reminded of why he's so appealing.
In the past few days, Marshall has put up a couple of short, somewhat introspective posts about how his blogging style has changed since he first began, which I'd like to share. I liked this from his August 14 piece:
The folks who've made efforts toward bipartisan compromise have again and again, in this era, been played for chumps. And that's one of the reasons President Bush has had a much harder time in his second term (one among many): he made it too clear too many times that he'll take anyone who'll give him an inch or lend him a hand and use them up and toss them when he's done.
Our policies abroad are a whole other matter. They're related to what I've described above, part of the same story. But there's more there. President Bush and his acolytes and enablers deserve all the blame in the world. But it's not sufficient. As Americans I think we need to grapple with what's happened. And it goes beyond President Bush. He did after all win reelection. He marginally expanded his congressional majorities. In the rough and tumble of the political moment, the fight needs to be taken to the president and his party. But we also need a more probing consideration of the forces that have made all this possible.
In any case, this is all a way of saying that in this all-or-nothing crisis the country has been passing through, I think it's made sense to line up with those who say, No. I guess I'm one of those partisanized moderates Kevin Drum has spoken of (not sure that's precisely the phrase he used.) That leads to a certain loss of nuance sometimes in commentary and a loss in the variegation of our politics generally. As a writer, often it's less satisfying.
But I cannot see looking back on all this, the threat the country is under, and saying, I stood aloof.
But it's
today's piece that struck me as especially worth passing along to those who may have missed it. Not because it's ferociously partisan - which is never Marshall's style even in his newly partisanized persona - but rather because it offers the kind of common sense that makes for a perfect rejoinder to the fence-straddlers and some moderate conservative-leaners we long-time partisans want to persuade to kiss off the Republican Party this November.
Now, here's the point I want to focus in on. I want to make a basic distinction between the things we might think or feel impulsively when in the grip of fear and things we really think ought to be done. I never thought we should be torturing people or rounding people up. What I am saying is that I remember the atmosphere of those days just after 9/11 and the primal gut instincts that made part of me wish those things were happening.
It now seems that even this London bomb plot may not be all it's cracked up to be. But it did give me a moment of that gut level fear. And in that moment, as much as I've thought what I've thought about Iraq, I'm not sure I ever felt as clearly how completely beside the point Iraq is from the real threat we face of deracinated Islamic radicals (in the Muslim world and sprinkled about the West) trying to perpetrate mass terror attacks.
It hit me like a sort of epiphany even though it was a realization of something I and countless others have been saying for years.
I'm curious to know whether anyone else experienced something similar and even more whether anyone else's mind (about Iraq) actually may have been changed.
Is there anyone in the country who can say honestly, in their heart of hearts, that when that moment of fear hit them after the recent reports out of London, they said to themselves, "God, I'm glad we're in Iraq"?
Anyone?
This may not seem like much of an epiphany to those here and elsewhere who were saying Bullshit! the instant they heard the news about the liquids-in-the-sky plot. But for many Americans, such as, I imagine, thousands who voted for Ned Lamont last week, moments like these can take them right to the core of what's been rumbling around in their brains not quite focused.
digby has a take on this that fits here as well:
It took me a little while to recognize what was happening too. I was a Clintonite who was willing to see if the third way could work. But I've got a strong streak of anti-authoritarianism in me that viscerally recoiled at the conservative movement's partisan misuse of the congress and the legal system during that era. Perhaps because I grew up in a rightwing household I understood that the bipartisan rules we had all assumed were a permanent fixture in American politics were no longer operative. By 2000, I was thoroughly radicalized and believed that Democrats had to play a different, more disciplined, brand of politics even if it meant losing in the short term (which, after 9/11, I figured would happen anyway.) It was clear to me that third way politics had no future once the Republicans had a taste of power and revealed themselves.
But that's me. I'm naturally partisan anyway. I grew up in a rightwing family and I've had emotional, take-no-prisoners political arguments my whole life --- I get how these macho wingnuts love the fight and will do anything to win. Most of us have been lucky to avoid such highly charged confrontations (at least since the Vietnam era) and quite naturally assume that the opposition is reasonable. (Most people you meet in real life are.) Modern rightwingers, however, are a different animal.
What Lamont's win and the polls seem to indicate - at least what I think and hope - is that we dyed-in-the-wool partisans may find it relatively easy to make common cause with the partisanized moderates not just in November, but subsequently, when it really counts, in the struggle to smash the unitary presidency, restore respect for the Constitution and international law, and build a rational, human rights-based foreign policy and national security policy.
For partisanized moderates, it's going to be no stretch to gain traction with the theme that has emerged here since last Thursday: You can't trust the Republicans to make you safer. You can't trust the Republicans to [fill in the blank]. Many Americans who weren't ready for that message in 2004 or even last August are definitely ready for it now.